


And We All Shine On

by xsaturated



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsaturated/pseuds/xsaturated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the weeks leading up to opening night, Sugar is determined to make sure her Teen Angel is ready for the stage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And We All Shine On

**Author's Note:**

> **rating:** PG  
>  **wordcount:** 7,500+  
>  **notes/warnings:** Written for the glee_besties minibang on Livejournal. Huge thank you to Kris for being an awesome beta and kicking my ass to get this finished. This deals with the aftermath of “The Break Up” so keep that in mind going into it. Title from “Instant Karma” by John Lennon.

The problem is that Sugar isn't nearly so oblivious as she pretends to be.

She knows that Blaine Anderson is gay in the same unshakeable way that she knows just about anything is better in leopard print and that a person who doesn't like pink simply isn't to be trusted.

Sugar had seen the ridiculous googly eyes Blaine had spent most of last year directing at Kurt, just like she's seen the expression he's been wearing at the moment - something closer to the look Earl gets on his face when Daddy refuses to buy more of those gross dried pigs ears from the vets - and well, Sugar isn't much of a fan of sad people, so she'd only felt mildly bad about not asking him what's going on. Or, well, if she’s being completely honest (and that is something she always aspires to do, even when the truth isn’t what people want to hear) keeping as far away as possible.

Except then she gets the role of Frenchie in the school play (proof, she thinks, that quasi-dating the play's student director was a brilliant tactical move on her part) and Blaine turns down the role of Danny (and really, if the kicked puppy expression wasn't clue enough that Blaine Anderson isn't doing so hot - him turning down the lead in anything is) and winds up landing the role of her very own Teen Angel.

And maybe she’s been turning a blind eye to the mopey expression on his face for most of the year and maybe she isn’t much for sad people, but it's practically a moment of divine intervention right there, because a glum Teen Angel is the last thing any good Frenchie needs (and Sugar intends to be iconic). A girl has to do what she has to do to keep her first big stage debut from flopping and in order to get her Angel back from dreary to dreamy, well - clearly he just needs a little more Sugar in his life.

\--

“We need to talk,” Sugar declares as she seizes the handles of Artie’s chair and starts to wheel him away from the member of the band he’d been busy gesticulating wildly at in what was no doubt one of his prolific rants on the quality of their playing.

Honestly, it was like he hadn’t realized that the band guys had taken to wearing earplugs after their second rehearsal when he started using terms like the vision and transcendent unironically.

“I was actually kind of in the middle of something,” Artie says after a moment, trailing off as he cranes his neck around to try and look back in the direction she was steering him away from and his eyes catch in the v of her shirt, reaching up to adjust his glasses before he adds, “But if you wanted to make out or something I can definitely rearrange my schedule.”

Sugar had discovered early in her high school career that a great boob top could work wonders when she wanted something done. Artie is no exception. High school boys were far too easy to manipulate. 

“Strictly business, boyfriend,” she says smoothly as she releases the handles of Artie’s chair and circles the chair to stand in front of him, snapping her fingers in his face and gesturing upwards to get his attention as she settles her hands over her hips and tips her chin up. “What are you going to do about Blaine?”

Artie blinks a few times, tilting his head to the side in that way he always does when he thinks Sugar has said something particularly odd and usually leads to one of his embarrassing attempts to placate her. “What about Blaine?” he says cautiously after a moment, tapping his fingers across the armrests of his chair with narrowed eyes.

“He looks like his grandmother got into an accident; running over his dog and instantly killing his favourite uncle,” Sugar replies bluntly, staring down at him shrewdly for a moment before she asks, “Have you had the prescription on your glasses checked recently?”

"I don't think Blaine has a dog," Artie replies dubiously, eyeing her guardedly from behind his glasses.

If Sugar can count on anything, it’s her highly attuned sense of when someone is trying to bullshit her. She narrows her eyes, folding her arms across her chest pointedly and hitching an eyebrow upward. 

"Alright alright," Artie breaks before Sugar even has to do the pouty thing that usually ends up in Daddy handing over the credit card he’d just confiscated, frowning up at her before shaking his head. "Blaine is an artist, Sugar. They feed off all of that heartache and drama. All of that emotion will just make him shine all the brighter on stage."

Sugar stares back at him in disbelief, shaking her head as she says, "You have got to be kidding me, right? This is my stage debut, Artie. You can’t just leave this up to chance! You try being ‘in the moment' for your pivotal scene with those big puppy eyes pointed at you. It's like all the sadness in the world gathered there to throw the world's most depressing party. He's supposed to be an angel."

"Trust me," Artie says firmly, reaching out to seize her hand and squeezing it firmly. "Blaine will be fine."

Sugar huffs and rolls her eyes, letting him swing their hands together in front of him before she concedes, "Fine. But you better be right, Artie Abrams. This is my career we’re talking about."

Artie beams back at her. "My directorial instincts have never steered me wrong. Just leave it all to me."

Sugar stares back at him, waiting as the silence stretches out until he adds, "So .. About that make out session?"

With a roll of her eyes, Sugar bends to drop a kiss to his cheek before turning on her heel to stalk away. Boys are way too predictable.

\--

The thing is, there is no way Sugar is leaving anything quite so crucial as the fate of her stage debut up to Artie. Good director and relatively good boyfriend he may be, but he is still a boy, and if there's one thing Sugar knows with any amount of certainty it's that boys are stupid.

Really stupid.

Hence, the plan.

"Hiya hottie," she announces brightly, flopping down on the makeshift booth they're using for rehearsal until props are finished with the set and nudging at his thigh with the toes of her brand new platforms.

He nods glumly at her in response and heaves a loud, dramatic sigh before saying, "Hi Sugar."

"Well you're not going to make anyone fall in love with _that_ face," she replies, wiggling in the seat until she can prop her heels up on his lap and recline across the booth.

"Excuse me?" Blaine asks, impeccably polite even when he is blinking rapidly in her direction like a startled bushbaby and the plush droop of his lower lip has her clucking her tongue loudly in disapproval, sliding her sunglasses down her nose for better effect as she sighs.

"Nope that won't do at all," she informs him after a long moment of observation, cocking her head to the side as she considers it; his lips do look wonderfully soft and inviting when he pouts, but sad little gay boys seem like a far less inviting prospect than his usual enthusiasm and pep. Or so she imagines.

The confused wrinkle of his nose is marginally better - but she suspects that she only finds it so endearing because it reminds her of the look her Daddy gets before he hands over his credit card.

"Don't worry, cutie," Sugar declares after another thoughtful inspection of his person -

(his wardrobe used to be so much more colourful, she notes regretfully, he’d practically been a walking pride parade for a while there last year, which had been optimal advertising at least, especially in those borderline indecently tight pants in eyecatching shades of fire-engine red and sunshine yellow - and while he can pull off the sulky, sad-eyed expression with those fluttery Bambi eyes of his as well as anyone, she much prefers his smiles)

\- "Leave it all to Sugar."

"Leave what to Sugar?" Blaine asks dubiously, though she thinks she spots a twitch at the corner of his mouth when he spots her sparkly pink pedicure.

"I'm going to find you a new man, silly," she informs him brightly, wriggling down into the (not very comfortable) seat, and beaming triumphantly at him as his eyebrows shoot upwards and the startled woodland creature look resurfaces.

The expected spluttering and horrified, "I don't want -" fill the air and Sugar eyes him hard over the rims of her sunglasses before she sits up and presses a finger to his lips to silence the protest that’s forming there.

For a moment it’s easy to get caught up in it, mesmerized by the rapid flutter of his eyelashes in response. She'd never quite noticed how long they are (criminally unfair, if she is being honest; her daddy had threatened to revoke her credit card privileges over the cost of lash extensions that had been nowhere near as pretty) or how from up close, his eyes look almost exactly like Bambi's.

It takes her a moment to realise that Blaine is just staring at her, forehead starting to wrinkle as his eyes drift down to the finger she still has pressed firmly to his (very soft) lips. Right. "No angel of mine deserves to be single," she declares after a moment, blinking to clear the haze (because up close she notices just how good he smells as well) before she sinks back and beams over at him. "Don't worry, I'll find you a new honey in no time."

And if maybe Blaine's lips droop even further, his eyes falling to some awful sad Bambi variation, like he’s skipped a few scenes to Bambi after his mom just got shot, well, it only makes her that much more determined to make this work.

All she can think is that it just goes to prove how completely wrong Artie is (and how badly her plan is needed). There is no way she’ll be able to remember her lines if she has those things staring back at her.

They’ll all thank her, in the end.

\--

The only problem is that Sugar has kind of hit an unexpected snag in her plan. For all that Blaine is as deliciously fun sized as your average Snickers bar, there is a tragic lack of suitably hot and eligible gay bachelors in her acquaintance and she isn't lowering her standards to include the maybes.

She considers the cute guy from her math class that she'd always thought used far too much product to be anything close to heterosexual for almost two entire days, going so far as to discover his name (Kevin, unfortunately, but she's sure she could work out some cuter alternatives if it came down to it) before she spots the first hint of ginger in his roots and that’s it. 

If he couldn't even come out of the closet as a ginger there is no way she is letting him near the sphere of her future career (or her angel, for that matter).

Sugar is starting to suspect she might need some help.

\--

There is something about watching Unique put on her face that is strangely captivating, like Sugar is getting to watch the person Unique sees in herself appear slowly before her in the mirror. Sugar swings her legs, the heels of her shoes tapping against the base of the vanity and watches Unique hold her eyelashes in place, waiting for the glue to set before fluttering them at the mirror and breaking into a wide smile.

Sugar claps her hands with a wide grin and that smile turns on her. From what Sugar has heard, things are a little tense with Unique's family at the moment, so it's nice to see her smiling again. 

"Fierce," she declares brightly, earning another flutter of Unique's eyelashes in response before she decides to just go for it, "I'm finding Blaine a new boytoy."

"Unique knows you didn't just say what she thought you did," Unique replies as she rummages through her makeup bag, coming up with two separate lip colours and frowning down at them in intense thought.

"He's so sad," Sugar sighs, swinging her feet again and staring up at the tiled ceiling. 

"Then he should have kept it in his pants," Unique replies stiffly, patting a hand delicately over her wig before adjusting it just so. "Unique has no place in her heart for cheating men."

Sugar huffs, stretching out her leg to nudge at Unique's hip with the toe of her new pumps. "You don't mean that. Doesn't it bother you that he looks like someone tore out his heart and stomped it into a mushy, sticky heart soup?"

"No," Unique sniffs, dabbing away a smudge of eyeliner from the corner of her eye. "He brought it on himself by being weak of will. Do you think Unique has never heard the Siren call of the Great Male Facebook Hunter?"

Sugar wrinkles her nose a little, leaning forward curiously to ask, "Have you?"

Something a little embarrassed flushes across Unique's cheeks before she says, "Well, no. But Unique also doesn't have a man to be tempted away from, so it's irrelevant." 

"But he didn't have a man, not really," Sugar replies, her heels thunking in beneath the sink as Unique falls quiet, staring hard at the mirror.

They had all noticed, as much as they had pretended not to, the way that Blaine had been struggling before it had happened. Blaine had never asked for help, Sugar’s starting to think he doesn’t really know how to, but they hadn't exactly offered to listen either.

The silence stretches, Sugar watching from the corner of her eye as Unique decides on a lip colour and slowly slicks it on, forehead furrowed in concentration. She waits, still just staring as Unique recaps the lipstick and starts packing away her makeup bag until finally there's a loud, put upon sigh.

"Fine," she admits, throwing her hands up in resignation and rolling her eyes as Sugar squeals and pushes off the sink to squeeze her in a hug, bouncing excitedly in her heels until Unique gently pushes her away. "Under one condition - no matchmaking. Cute butt or no, Unique is far too much woman for Blaine Anderson to handle." 

"Of course," Sugar agrees, beaming widely as she loops her arm through Unique's and starts to tug her towards the door to the bathroom. "Let's go window shopping."

\--

It’s all going surprisingly well.

If their latest outings had been any indication, Unique had been a wise choice for a co-conspirator. She had proven herself to have a singular talent for sensing the precise concentration of gay in any given location and a surprisingly high percentage of accuracy in predicting the best places to locate the particular type of gay they were hunting. Something she is exceedingly proud of if the way she’s been strutting since their latest outing to the Lima Mall had been any indication. 

Sugar thinks that she could probably stand to be a little less smug about it (the sheer enthusiasm the guy handling the hotdogs at Nathan’s had applied to his job had been a dead giveaway in the first place).

The point of the matter is that Sugar is finally starting to make some headway in her mission to save her stage debut from certain disaster; she has a shortlist of possibilities ranked on a scale of cuteness, personal hygiene, and style saved into the notes on her phone and she has been debating with Unique how to progress into phase two of the plan for the past two days.

As far as Sugar can see she is well on her way to successfully saving the entire school play (and her acting debut) when she hits one giant stumbling block that comes in the shape of Kitty Wilde and her sleepover.

Sugar likes Kitty, most of the time. They both have what Artie calls a distinct lack of tact, though Sugar prefers to think of it as having an inherent dedication to the truth. The point is, they're cut from the same cloth, even if Sugar's comes with a significantly cuter print.

The problem with that is that Kitty is kind of a major buzzkill no matter what subject you turn to and considering Unique’s apparent inability to keep a secret project _secret_ , it only takes fifteen minutes after their musical interlude before she is blurting out Sugar’s plans to the entire group.

Predictably enough, the reactions are at varying levels of annoyed to confused. Marley looks like someone just stuck a particularly difficult calculus test under her nose and Tina has that aggressive set to her jaw that Sugar last witnessed when they’d been holding auditions for the new Rachel. Unique won’t meet her eye, apparently finding the mechanics of her fan fascinating and Brittany is...well, Brittany is apparently pretending her fingers are worms as she digs them into a piece of brownie.

All of which would be fine, it’s not like Sugar expected them to understand the brilliance of her plan right away. She’d learned early on in life that not everybody had the same capacity to visualize the dream, like she did. But Kitty?

 _Major_ buzzkill.

"Are you kidding me? He looks like a baby seal that went swimming in an oil slick," she replies, snorting to herself at her own joke. "How would you even find someone who could touch him without sliding right off again?"

Sugar scowls, glaring when Unique fails to hide her laughter behind her fan quick enough, and narrows her eyes. 

And Kitty is only the first to protest.

"He seems pretty hung up on Kurt to me," Tina adds to the mix, picking at Kitty's bedspread and staring hard at Sugar with that same calculative expression on her face, "Did you even ask him if he's okay with this?"

"Of course I did," Sugar replies indignantly. 

Sort of.

The skeptical look on Tina's face says it all.

"I'm trying to save the musical from being a complete disaster!" Sugar replies indignantly as she feels the judgment on their faces bearing down on her, "You are all terrible friends who don't care about anything. He's completely miserable. He looks like someone gave him a puppy, let him pet it and cuddle it and name it, and then took it outside and shot it."

"He cheated," Tina replies stiffly, flicking her hair back off her face and quirking her eyebrows upwards. "A few dates with the guy from Nathan's isn't going to fix him."

"I don’t know about that,” Unique murmurs beneath her breath. “He had a really good handle on those hotdogs."

"Gross," Kitty interrupts, wrinkling her nose.

"Not the point," Tina continues, "If he wanted a date he could find one himself. He found that guy to cheat with didn't he?"

"How?" Sugar replies with a groan, "Do you know how hard it is to find cute gay boys in this town that aren't greasy or ginger or have terrible hygiene? They don't exactly grow on trees you know."

"He's an alpha gay," Brittany says, not even looking up from the crumbled mess of brownie she's been playing with for the past five minutes.

And Marley, who has yet to realise that Brittany's comments rarely required additional explanation is wrinkling her nose and saying, "Pardon?" before anyone can stop her.

"Alpha gay," Brittany repeats with a roll of her eyes like its obvious. "I heard Kurt say it once. Blaine is like the leader of the wolf pack. When he's lonely all he has to do is call out and all the other wolves in the area hear him. Like gay wolf sonar."

Sugar nods slowly, staring hard at her friend as she sees Kitty's forehead wrinkling, lips pursed like she's about to say something excessively mean but Brittany apparently isn't done yet.

"It's why he's so sad all the time - he had to leave his gay wolf pack and their orgies behind when he transferred to McKinley, but he had Kurt here. But now Kurt's gone and he's a lone wolf," Brittany wiggles her finger into the centre of her brownie, pushing it through the other side until it looks like a worm surfacing through the crumbs. "All the other gay wolves know he’s single because of their gay wolf sonar, so they've been circling."

"Brittany I'm pretty sure the Warblers aren't all gay," Tina intervenes gently.

Brittany finally looks up from her plate, rolling her eyes at Tina before she says, "Then why do they all look at him like they want to kiss him?"

Unsurprisingly, nobody quite seems to know the answer to that.

\--

The problem is that after the sleepover, Sugar isn't so certain about the list on her phone. Tina's words ring in her ears every time she scrolls through it, staring hard at the rankings - they'd covered all the important things they could think of; hygiene and cuteness and good hair - but she was starting to think that, no matter how great their hair was, it wasn't really going to fix anything.

Blaine was sad. Miserable actually, and she wasn't so sure that a date with a stranger, however cute he might be, was the answer. Blaine needed someone who could make him smile, someone who knew him.

If anything, maybe Brittany was the one with the right answer.

Maybe what Blaine really needed was his wolf pack.

\--

"You have exactly five minutes starting from now," Sugar declares as she drops down into the seat opposite him, taking a long sip from her straw and watching as his head jerks up. "Shoot."

In truth, Sugar doesn't know an awful lot about Sebastian Smythe, but the startled look on his face followed by the strained attempt at what Sugar thinks is probably his version of a polite smile is odd, even from the little she remembers of him. She arches an eyebrow thoughtfully as he clears his throat and sets his coffee cup on the table in front of him before asking, "Do you carry a number for your therapist with you or..."

Sugar slides her sunglasses down her nose to narrow her eyes at him, tapping her fingertips across the tabletop loudly as she says, "Not a good start, Warbler. If you want the inside track on unwrapping that delicious, fun sized treat, you're going to need my help."

"Did you forget to take your medication?" 

Sugar tips her chin up, staring down her nose at him as he squints back at her, tilting his head to the side before he frowns in recognition, leaning in slightly as he says, "Wait a minute, you're in the New Directions."

"Duh," she replies, sipping loudly from her straw, "Sugar Motta. I'm the star power that holds their sorry asses together. And you still aren't making your case here."

Sebastian tips his head to the other side, before he finally deduces, "Are you talking about Blaine?"

"You're kind of slow," Sugar replies, setting her drink back down on the table before leaning back into her chair. "My boy needs a boy."

The slight wrinkle of his nose doesn't successfully hide the interest in his eyes and Sugar can't help but feel a little smug at how completely right she was. Sebastian was still totally hung up on Blaine. "Last I checked your boy had a boy," Sebastian replies cautiously after a moment, eyeing her suspiciously like he's trying to figure out what her angle is.

"Not anymore," she replies, shrugging nonchalantly as she watches the way Sebastian perks up with interest before he manages to school his face into something more neutral. "They broke up or something and now he walks around looking like Bambi's mom just died."

"And what makes you think Blaine would want anything to do with me?" Sebastian asks after a moment, staring hard across the table at her. "He doesn't even text me anymore."

Sugar rolls her eyes, taking another long sip from her straw as she scoffs, "Boo hoo, you know he only stopped because he was mad at you and Kurt was being territorial. Man up, Warbler. This is your chance."

"I still fail to see how this has anything to do with you," Sebastian says after a moment, narrowing his eyes and sitting up straighter in his sight. 

"I need my Teen Angel fully repaired come opening night," she replies, tipping back the brim of her hat and narrowing her eyes at him. "Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on your lines when he has the Bambi face? It's a nightmare."

"So you decided to become his pimp," Sebastian surmises.

Sugar blinks, pursing her lips around her straw and sucking loudly before sinking back in her seat with a frown. “Look, Warbler, I thought that you might just be the man for the job, but if you aren’t willing to play ball -”

“I’m always willing to play with -” Sebastian starts to reply, his voice dropping into something suggestive before he chokes back his response, eyes growing wary as he sinks back in his seat and visibly closes off his expression. 

Or attempts to at least. Sugar’s pretty sure he couldn’t be more obvious if there were little cartoon hearts floating around his face.

Figuring out what inspired the change isn’t hard - a quick glance over her shoulder finds Blaine standing in line, distractedly digging into his pocket for his wallet with that same kicked puppy expression he’s been wearing since play rehearsals began (since Kurt left, if she’s being honest) and Sugar, well, she isn’t nearly so oblivious as she pretends to be. 

One look at Sebastian’s face, the guarded way his lips thin as he stares down at the lid of his coffee cup, tells her all she really needs to know. She has a list of cute boys, evaluated by every attribute she and Unique had been able to come up with to determine if they’re good enough for her Teen Angel. But sweet or sexy or whatever they might prove to be, given the time to get to know Blaine, she suspects none of them would care half as much as the asshole sitting across the table from her with that dopey lovestruck expression on his face, if he was given the chance.

“He can’t see me talking to you,” Sugar says after a moment, readjusting the headscarf she had draped over her hair in a disguise and rising from her seat, digging into her purse for a moment before sliding her business card neatly across the table to him. “I think you might be the right guy for the job. If you’re interested in applying for the position, contact me on this number.”

Sebastian stares down at the card with a carefully arched eyebrow, shifting back in his seat and folding his arms across his chest as he says, “This is a terrible idea.”

Sugar pauses in the middle of clipping her purse closed, hesitating for just a moment and biting down on her lower lip before she says, “He’s just really sad, you know? I thought that maybe a new boy would help, but I think he mostly just needs a friend.” And if the odd, strangely soft expression that briefly passes over Sebastian’s face is any indication, she thinks she should maybe expand her known repertoire into the successful manipulation of the entire male population because that was far too easy.

She nods seriously at him, taking a settling breath before sliding her sunglasses back up her nose, gesturing sharply between her eyes and his and saying, “Tell no one about this meeting,” as she backs away before turning on her heel and hurrying for the door.

The last thing she needs is for anyone to find out she was fraternizing with the Warblers.

\--

“What was the deal with you and Preppy McDouchebag at the Lima Bean yesterday?” Kitty asks as she leans into the locker next to Sugar’s, glancing up from filing her nails with an almost feral smile on her face. “Getting some real action on the side from someone who’s fully -”

Sugar turns, pressing a finger firmly over Kitty’s mouth to shush her and pausing for only a moment to note how pink Kitty’s lips are and note the slightly sticky feeling of her lipgloss against her finger before staring rabbit-eyed around the corridor as she shushes her. “Of course not,” she replies sharply, glancing warily at where she thought she’d seen the shadow of an afro from the corner of her eye before turning back to Kitty as she delicately takes hold of Sugar’s wrist and tugs it away from her mouth with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“I saw you giving him your number, sweetie. And we both know there’s only one thing those horny private school boys want,” Kitty continues, turning to lean back against the lockers with a broad scheming smile on her face. “Case in point, your Boy Wonder charity case. He wouldn’t be in this position if he’d been able to keep it in his pants.”

Sugar scowls, raising a finger to point it sharply in Kitty’s face as she says, “I was talking to him about Blaine, okay, and you can’t mention this to anyone or I’ll tell my daddy where you live.”

Kitty’s eyebrows arch upwards, the curve of her lips almost sweet as she scoffs, “Oh please, doesn’t your ‘daddy’ own a piano store?”

“Daddy owns a lot of things,” Sugar replies elusively, looking away with a huff. “Besides, do you want to be associated with the play if it completely flops? Isn’t it bad enough that you agreed to do it in the first place even without it completely sucking?”

There’s silence as Kitty considers her response, eyes dropping to study her nails intently as she drags the file slowly across them until she looks up again, the expression on her face sharp as she says, “Whatever. I just wanted to know if you were really screwing around behind Tiny Tim’s back.”

Sugar watches as she pushes away from the lockers, high pony swinging as she whips her head around to add, “Yum though. If Anderson doesn’t go for him he’s even more of an idiot than I thought he was,” she shrugs just a little, something a little too soft at the edges of her smirk to be entirely convincing before she stalks away, the pleats of her skirt swishing around her thighs.

And if Sugar didn’t know any better, she’d almost think that was Kitty’s way of giving her blessing.

(She isn’t entirely sure if that’s a good thing.)

\--

Sugar gets distracted.

It's understandable, maybe. Unique's parents pull her out of the play and there is an emergency shopping and spa trip charged to Daddy's goldcard to try and cheer her up. Final rehearsals are made even more hectic with the sudden shuffle-around and Tina is in such a vicious mood as she does the final touches on their costumes that Kitty insists that she drew blood. 

In reality, Sugar forgets; there's a list sitting on her phone that gets ignored in favor of the reminders of spa treatments booked in the lead up to her stage debut (because she is determined to look her absolute best) and the one text she gets from an unknown number reading, 'I'm not doing the scheming thing this year. Let Blaine know that if he wants to talk, he knows my number' is quickly buried beneath an increasingly manic series of texts from Artie about the state of the production and Brittany's hourly updates on Lord Tubbington's depressive state.

Her time gets eaten away by the loud and demanding cries for attention that come from all corners and when she isn't looking, Blaine fades away into the background in his neutral and dark colours, his mouth shut as he sits in the back of the choir room or in the background of play rehearsals.

Everything is so hectic with trying to make Unique feel better and make absolute sure that she has all of her lines nailed down that Sugar doesn't even realise what she has forgotten until she is faced with their final dress rehearsal, Blaine descending the stairs in blinding white and pearl-grey, and Sugar realises that she has run out of time.

It feels like one moment Sugar is gritting her teeth through her first costume fitting; trying not to whine when Tina 'accidentally' sticks her with the pins (if only because, if Kitty was to be believed, crying only made her meaner) and the next she is lying breathless across the finished props booth that smells strongly of fresh paint, transfixed by the way the stage lights reflect off of Blaine's eyes, and their final dress rehearsal is getting a standing ovation from the props department who are putting the finishing touches on the staircase.

The scene is absolutely perfect, from beginning to end, and Sugar understands now what Artie had meant when he said that there was no need to worry about Blaine’s performance. He has been fading, is the thing, bleeding color by the day until the things that made him special, made him different, seemed to disappear entirely. On stage he lights up; a brilliant gleaming thing that is so alive Sugar can’t seem to look away. Watching him sing is a reminder of just how much they lose when he sits silent in the back of a room, his presence buried beneath the drama and the energy of new faces.

The moment Blaine steps down off that staircase Sugar races across the stage towards him, launching herself into his arms and clinging on, arms wrapped tight around his neck as she squeals, "That was perfect!" in his ear, and when she feels him flinch she is struck by the realization that while his performance may have been perfect; it hadn’t changed a single thing.

Artie was right, in a way. Blaine was an actor, he would shine on stage no matter what was asked of him, but he was anything but fine.

The moment the show is over and the curtain falls, when he steps out from beneath the stage lights and sheds the skin of Sugar’s Teen Angel, he will be as miserable as he has ever been and now that Sugar has seen it; has _acknowledged_ how sad he is, she can’t go back to not noticing.

Sugar isn’t good with sad people, is the thing. They make her uncomfortable in that way that having to acknowledge that other people have emotions always does. And she doesn’t know why, but the idea of seeing Blaine shrink back into that meek shadow of himself that has been roaming the halls all year after seeing him shine again makes _her_ want to cry.

She doesn’t realize how tight she has been holding on until she hears his startled (pleased?) laugh before he says, "I still kind of need my ribs if you want me to be able to sing, Sugar."

With a soft, “Oops,” that isn’t as convincingly ditzy as she hoped it would be, she pulls back, drawing her arms back to her sides and just taking in the confusion on his face. That is the moment that she knows for certain that this is no longer about finding Blaine a boyfriend or saving her stage debut from some imminent bambi-eyed threat; it’s about wanting this boy to simply be happy again.

"Thank you,” she says after a moment, turning her head to press a kiss to his cheek before dropping back onto her heels and taking a step back from him, her hands slipping off his shoulders to hang at her sides, smoothing the fabric of her costume over her hips distractedly. She smiles at the way he tips his head to the side, forehead wrinkling in confusion as if to ask why, a hand reaching up to wipe away the pink smear of lip gloss she’d left behind. 

And maybe he doesn't get it, but if there is any small way that Sugar can make him happy, she is going to find it.

\--

Sugar spends most of the afternoon before their opening night trying not to get in the way of the numerous panicking cast and crew members that have taken over backstage. It’s manic back there, with finishing touches on props suddenly being remembered and costume disasters that need to be taken care of. She’s worried that all of the panicked energy is going to throw off her aura and she’ll forget the lines she has worked so hard to memorize, but there is something kind of thrilling about it all as well.

Finn manages to keep the cast in line, for the most part, she’s seen him wandering around backstage giving pep talks to anyone who looks remotely lost; but everyone is so busy that it isn’t until ten minutes before she’s due to go onstage for her first cue that she finds out that Kurt and Rachel are in the audience. It sends something panicked skittering through her chest, the realization that she hasn’t seen Blaine for over an hour, even in passing, and apparently neither has anyone else.

It is all so incredibly unfair.

She’s watched Blaine struggle, is the thing. Sugar might be good at pretending not to notice other people’s problems, but she knows how hard he has to work to cast off that misery that he cloaks himself in and become her Teen Angel for his short stint on stage. He is brilliant at it, the entire act is perfect, if she does say so herself, but she also knows that it is going to be so much harder for him to do any of that with Kurt sitting right there in the audience.

None of it is fair. Part of her wants to go find Kurt in the audience and tell him he has to leave; how unfair it is of him to come here unannounced and threaten not only Blaine’s performance but hers too. She depends on Blaine; on his ability to carry that performance, to make the audience love them. Sometimes people have a hard time figuring out how awesome Sugar is on their own.

She turns her head again, scanning the backstage chaos for the brilliant white of Blaine’s costume, but there’s no sign of him. Sugar is wondering if she should go try and track him down but then she’s being waved onto the stage for her first scene and she closes her eyes, shuts out the uncomfortable feeling in her chest and hopes that Blaine will be okay.

And it’s starting to hit her now that there isn’t much at all she can do about any of this, about Kurt’s presence in the audience or Blaine’s ability to cope with that, she’s beginning to think that there never really was. All she can really do now is go out on that stage and make sure she is the best damn Frenchie that McKinley has ever seen.

(And hope that her Teen Angel isn’t having a breakdown in a bathroom backstage somewhere.)

\--

The show goes off without a hitch, in the end.

There is a moment on stage when she sees Blaine’s eyes find Kurt in the audience and it looks like he’s going to break; she watches the struggle on his face as he fights to stay in the moment, like he has slipped under the water and is desperately fighting to resurface but she also sees him claw his way up again, resurfacing from the guilt and the sadness that threaten to drown him and swallowing back the emotion that stings in his eyes. It’s more determination than she’s seen in him all year.

It makes her want to hug him right then and there, because she knows at that moment that Blaine will be okay in the end. However bad he might feel now, he’ll be able to pull himself up out of it.

That’s why she doesn’t think too much of it when he disappears after the curtain call, so busy celebrating their successful open night and pressing kisses to Artie’s cheeks as he wheels her around backstage in a victory lap, that she doesn’t notice Blaine is gone until Brittany is asking why she can’t smell raspberry hair gel.

Sugar finds him standing in the hallway, the heartbreak on his face so raw and exposed she doesn’t know how any of them could have ignored it for so long. She thinks she can probably guess what happened to leave him looking like that; deflated and small and so unbearably sad that she doesn’t even think twice about hugging him so hard she can hear the air leave his lungs in one shuddering breath.

She holds on for so long, so tight, with his arms hanging loose at his sides and he is so still, so so silent, that she is starting to wonder if maybe he is drowning again before his arms wrap around her shoulders and she feels him inhale sharply, the sound echoing in the silent hallway. His voice is soft and shaken when he finally pulls away, wiping discretely at his face as he says, “What was that for?”

Maybe he isn’t ready to give up the act, yet and maybe Sugar isn’t very good at pretending but as she hooks her elbow through his and leans into his side, pointedly not noticing when he discretely wipes at his face, she thinks that maybe she can do this one thing for him.

“For being the best Teen Angel any Frenchie could ask for,” she says instead, tugging lightly at his arm with hers as she adds, “Come on, cutie, everyone’s meeting up in the choir room.”

And the small, sad smile she gets in response isn’t much - but she thinks that maybe they can work on it together.

\--

She deleted the lists from her phone the night of their dress rehearsal, but there is one unsaved number buried in her texts that she goes searching for that night. Sugar stares hard at her phone, wondering if she is making the right decision for all of two minutes before shaking her head and starting to type out a message.

It’s strange that in the end it is Brittany who had it right in the first place, what Blaine needed all along wasn’t a new boy or a chance at reconciliation, she’s starting to see that what he needs most is to be reminded that there are people who still love him regardless of what he has done. That maybe he doesn’t have Kurt, but there are plenty of people still here who care about him.

And yeah, Artie would probably pitch a fit if he realizes that the person who paid for an entire block of seats at the last minute with their Daddy’s credit card was her. The rest of the New Directions would probably murder her if they figured out who they were for.

But it’s worth it when she sees Blaine’s eyes catch on the two rows of seats in the middle of the theater, confusion wrinkling his forehead for just a moment at the sight of those familiar blazers before he smiles, genuine and big and surprised; his eyes wide and shining beneath the lights of the stage as he descends the staircase. 

The rest of the New Directions can debate over why the Warblers were in the audience later. They’ll call them spies and wonder how they even heard about the play in the first place; but when Sugar looks over to see Blaine sitting in the back of the choir room again, a small smile on his face, she knows she did the right thing.

Sugar can’t fix Blaine, she knows now that the only person who can really do that is Blaine himself. But seeing him shine again, if only for that moment, tells her that maybe all of this has been worth it after all.

\--


End file.
